123-reg

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

When you think about it Google is always looking for ways to improve its users experience when searching for relevant content. More and more sophisticated algorithms are being developed by Google as it constantly battles with dubious search engine optimisation techniques. Search engine optimisation methods which are in effect ensuring that the user experience searching for quality and relevant information is less rather than more satisfactory.

One such dubious method is article spinning. The idea behind article spinners is that you can write one quality article and then use alternative words and phrases to make many copies of the article with specifically designed software for the task. In effect the basic content or message of the article remains the same only the words are changed for the benefit of the search engines. This assumes that Google, Bing and other well known search engines are incapable of detecting that the article is just one of many other similar copies of the original. Google’s answer to techniques like this is the recent introduction of the Panda algorithm. Considering the computing power available to Google perhaps it is a little naive to believe that changing a few words and phrases could fool the processing power available to one of the most powerful organisations on the web.

In principle the idea of unique well written high quality, informative articles on a subject which is relevant, by a person who is qualified to write it, is all that anyone searching for information could possibly ask for. However, when searching the web we often come across search results which lead us to low grade or useless sites. Why does this happen? Well anyone familiar with search engine optimisation knows that you can raise the awareness of your site by a number of legitimate and perfectly legally recognised methods. In principle this involves amongst other things using relevant keywords in headings and in the content of your web page. Whilst this is useful for search engines in itself it doesn’t necessarily mean that the information is either relevant or useful for the reader. For instance there are websites which are littered with relevant keywords appropriate to a search query but whose primary aim is promoting something completely different to a search, say for business information, by promoting something completely different such as footwear. In this case the search leads to a website with absolutely nothing to do with the search query other than the misuse of keyword optimisation.

Google is always wanting to ensure that we continue to use its services and knows that ultimately relevancy and quality are the keys to ensuring that continued customer loyalty. The fact that Google is so dominant is because at all times it is striving to ensure that searches remain relevant and helpful to the Internet user. Again and again Google has made it absolutely clear that any site containing quality information has nothing to fear from the development of ever more sophisticated search engine algorithms. So any website which has useful and relevant content doesn’t need to worry about new algorithms from Google. However since the development of the recent Panda algorithm even some well known previously high ranked web sites have experienced a significant down grading in their ranking. Many high profile article marketing sites such as Ezine Articles have been impacted by the use of the new Panda algorithm because of the overall nature of their content. Google is concerned that many articles on article marketing web sites, which purport to be written by experts are in fact nothing of the sort. They are also concerned about the fact that these sites contain thousands of short articles of 300 to 400 words which are really nothing more than general information with no depth or genuine quality to them. These articles appear in many cases to have taken no more than ten or fifteen minutes to write and are generally of poor editorial content. Often the same subject is written about in perhaps a round about way in ten or fifteen articles by the same author. The information in the articles is substantially the same and if you have read one of them then you are probably going to find the rest are merely regurgitations. These authors have not used article spinners for these submissions as they know that the best article marketing sites have software to detect this. However they can get round this by writing articles on the same subject which are basically covering a specific area again and again with very little new material in them. These articles have one purpose only: website promotion.

However this should not detract from the real power of article marketing. After all, well written and informative articles can provide a steady source of visitors for a website for a very long period of time. This is verified by the fact that some articles which were written years ago still command very high positions in organic searches because of their relevancy and quality. If you write articles like that for a website like that Google will be you ally rather than your enemy. So the message is straight forward provide quality and relevancy on your website and Google will only be a help not a hindrance.

1 comment:

I looked into spinning once thinking it would be an easy way around writing content, and after two hours of configuring the software and then seeing the results I went back to writing content normally.

My website is full of unique content - I don't have one spun article or dozens of rehashed articles either and I did okay during Panda. I have however seen sites that as you say were extremely popular, lose a lot of favour with Google after Panda and through no fault of their own.

I can see why Google does what it does - the user experience on the search engine has to be great and there are always people trying to get around it - but I do wonder whether I should be looking into other ways of generating traffic. Just in case the unfortunate does one day happen...